19 thoughts on “Links! Links! Links!”

For me they don’t work when I’m reading Joe on my mobile, but when I am on my laptop it works fine. I think NBC’s website may default to their “mobile” website if you are on your phone, and then the link doesn’t work.

Let’s compare with ARod. ARod DID sign the big contract. He DID win a World Series (one). He’s 37, suspended for the year, had three pretty weak years before this…. and STILL has three years left on his contract. So, the last SEVEN years of ARod’s contract are almost for sure going to be a complete waste. Even if Miggy outperforms ARod, you’re still looking at half of that contract occurring after significant decline, unless he turns into Hank Aaron. Let’s see if anyone wants to place a small wager on that happening. While the Yankees can apparently absorb ARod’s contract, the Tigers won’t be able to.

Purely from a baseball point of view – setting aside the steroid because that’s a separate issue and it muddies the waters too much – if the Miggy contract works out the way the A-Rod contract did in baseball terms, that’s absolutely a good deal for the Tigers. The Yankees did win a World Series and flags fly forever. The years and the valuation on this contract are what you have to pay if you want to hold onto star players and hold onto a window of contention. That’s just the way the game works.

I think it is a bad contract, yes. But I would argue that the reason it’s bad is not because of the years/value, it’s because the Tigers didn’t need to sign it now. They could have waited a year or two to sign it. They didn’t need to commit this money now. In terms of the money and years, it’s a fine deal. Not a great one, but a fine one. He’s going to be bad and overpaid at the end of it. But that’s the cost of playing ball.

I think ultimately, yes, it’s going to be really crappy and tie the Tigers down in a few years’ time. But that is the way that baseball works now for all teams outside of the Yankees and Red Sox and the Dodgers and maybe the Cardinals on the outside end of it. You either shy away from committing money to players entering FA and bet that you can find enough top prospects to stay competitive with young players (the Rays model) or you commit big money to players and accept that they’re going to be overpaid on the end of it, and accept a few years of salary albatross land as a cost of being competitive. That’s the baseball landscape we have right now – those are the choices for most teams. Both require sacrificing something. And while the Rays model is cheaper for the owners, I fundamentally do not see how it’s superior from the fan’s perspective.

I understand why these long contracts have become de rigueur to blast from the “smart” baseball writers’ perspective. Players rapidly decline after 30, etc. The stats are there. It’s clear. But I wonder what labor relations would look like if owners took the advice of “smart” baseball writers. Mike Trout — who the “smart” baseball writers, and many others also, say is the best player in baseball — made, what, $500k per year his first two years in the league? And he has, what, three more years under that contract? (it’s being bumped up to a million dollars, or something?) So he has to spend five years making tens of millions of dollars less than what he would make if he was Miggie’s age. And then, by the time he is 30, all sportswriters say he should start making less than whatever contract he will sign in three years will pay him. I think if this was the reality, the players’ union might perhaps demand a change in the pay structure. And maybe there would be a strike. And maybe the “smart” baseball writers would blast players for being greedy and causing a shut down of “our” game. Not saying that this has anything to do with the contracts, but the smug self righteousness is getting a little old. Just something for the writers to think about.

Average players are paid according to how they perform. Superstars are paid by how many jerseys they sell, how much more popcorn people eat, how much more people drink when they play… and, to some extent, how they perform. But of course how they perform is what made them a superstar. I hate these long contracts as much as JoPo, but it bugs me that a statistician such as Joe would not get the stats on the non-playing side of things.

Um…what? What stats? Are you suggesting that the Tigers are paying Miguel Cabrera more money than they should because people are hungrier and thirstier when he plays? What’s his PEAR (Popcorn Eaten Above Replacement) ? Higher than Andrew McCutchen’s? We Bucco fans are a hungry bunch, though, their HDEQ (Hot Dog Eating Quotient) remained in the top 10 during the Jack Wilson/Freddy Sanchez years.

Joe wrote a great column on the Cabrerra column. The premise is that the Tiger management is not stupid and must be looking at getting their value from the next five years of the ten year $292 Million extension. Joe said they likely were looking at it as a $292 Million five year contract. If so, they are stupid, becasue they already had the first 2 years locked up under the current contract for $48 Million. So, under Joe’s theory, then they would have paid $284 Million for 3 years, which is of course an absurd deal. Tiger management may well not be stupid. But they agreed to a stupid exptension.

CORRECTED, SORRY:
Joe wrote a great column on the Cabrera signing. The premise is that the Tiger management is not stupid and must be looking at getting their value from the next five years of the ten year $292 Million extension. Joe said they likely were looking at it as a $292 Million five year contract. If so, they are stupid (and Joe made a mistake in an otherwise brilliant column), because they already had the first 2 years locked up under the current contract for $48 Million. So, under Joe’s theory, if they expected to get their value over the next five years, then they would paid tehe $248 Million extension for years 3, 4 and 5, which of course would be a monumentally stupid deal. Tiger management may well not be stupid. But they agreed to a stupid exptension.